Monday, March 7, 2011

Fun Monday - A Dilemma

During the month of March, the Georgia Girls at In Good Company are the lovely hostesses of Fun Monday. Today our task is "to list 5 things you are willing to spend your hard earned cash on and five things you would rather steal (hypothetically) than waste your money on."

When I first read the assignment, I was not sure that I wanted to participate. What me steal? My overactive conscience does let me steal. When I was about 8 years old, my older sister and I were at the local movie theatre. She gave me a dime and sent me out for a pack of gum. Unfortunately, when at the counter, I dropped the dime. Afraid that my sister would yell at me for being careless, I stole one pack of Wrigley's Doublemint gum off the counter. Returning to my seat, I gave my sister the stolen goods. Gum at that time cost five cents, so of course, my sister wanted the change. I had no change to give her so she scolded me for losing the change. Anyway, my crime weighted heavy on my soul for weeks. As penance, I returned more than one nickel secretly to the theatre counter. Nonetheless, I was sure that the pack of gum was my one way ticket to HELL. On the other hand, I am really not so self-righteous to claim that I do no wrong. My 64 year old self came up with these two lists.

Items to spend hard earned cash.

Necessities like food, shelter, transportation, clothes

Charity

Presents for family and friends

Entertainment

Leisure

Things that I might have taken

Good ideas

Lilacs - When I was a senior in high school, a good friend and I cut some lilacs from a bush in an alley. We took the bouquet to her mom, who was in the hospital.

Songs - Although I would never, ever dream of copying an album and selling it for personal gain or profit, I have purchased music and copied a song for another format for my own use. Technically even though you paid for the original, this is stealing.

Words - Plagiarism is defined as "Whenever you use more than three words in a row that occurred exactly in the same order in your source material, put the words into quotation marks and use a parenthetical note or footnote or endnote to give credit to your source." (From http://www.mnstate.edu , "Plagiarism: what it is and how to avoid it") The limitation of three words seems harsh to me.

Time - If time is not used productively, it is gone, vanished and never can be returned. In my lifetime, I have wasted more than a few moments by worrying about what might have been or about what is yet to come. Those moments are gone forever as if they have been stolen.

9 comments:

I so appreciate your thoughts on splurging vs "stealing", Molly. As is evident in your lists, how we use our mnoey, time and talents says a lot about who we are as a person. Your chewing gum lesson in honesty reminded me of a lie that I told early in my professional career. I could have been in a lot of trouble but I ended up confessing to my boss what I'd done and why. He came up with a solution that got things sorted but I still had to own my lie. That was a lesson well learned. Re plagarism--it's especially hard with the internet, I think. I constantly wrestle with giving credit, especially for images I use on my blog.

Love your two list Molly...your childhood memory is one I can relate to! Sometimes those lessons learned in childhood stick with us and serve us well into adulthood. I like what Swampy says about plagiarism..its a fine line there!

Loved your life lesson. I've always lived by a stong inner moral code as well. All my parents had to say was, "you do what you think is right." Shoot! Never got into any trouble. When it comes to crafts or entertaining, I never feel a need to be original when someone already has done the thinking, but will gladly let people know it wasn't my idea. When you read or surf so much nowadays, it's hard to know if you ever have an original thought :) Thanks for joining us today!

Life is so much easier when you are honest. Nothing to remember to cover up! A couple of days ago, my son found a $10 bill in the hall at school. There was no way to tell who it belonged to, and he gave it to a teacher. Then he started kicking himself. I told hiim he did the right thing - and that you should NEVER regret doing the honest thing. He felt better after that (but he said he sure could have used that $10!). The thing is, so could the person who lost it. I know I'd go back looking!

I agree with both your lists. I don't mind spending money for stuff I need, but I resent being pressured to spend it for stuff I don't need.

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